What skills should I improve in order to eventually work at companies such as Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, etc.?

Question

I'm entering my 4th year of my bachelors in EE with a focus on computer hardware. I plan to take 9 total semesters, so I still have 3 semesters remaining.

Last summer I worked at a firm that did electrical consulting work, wasn't my cup of tea by any stretch of the imagination. This summer, I'm working in my university's physics department working on much more computer hardware-focused things. Projects include transferring data between uC and PC via SPI bus, a python GUI to control lab equipment with VISA, and I'm currently working on an SPI bus for communicating between a few proprietary instruments and an FPGA.

I think I'm interested in designing CPUs, GPUs, etc. but I'm not too sure where to start other than to work on projects involving FPGAs. And then, if that is the right path to go down, what kinds of projects should I focus on? Does it matter?

And after I graduate, what kind of jobs should I be looking for to eventually work at places such as Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Apple, etc.? What skills are they looking for that I can begin developing now? I'm not sure if this is true, but from what I've seen, not too many graduates get hired.

Thanks for the responses!

marcoc6927 · Accepted Answer

Computer architecture course (will teach you simple 5 stage processor deign, out of order design, microarchitecture, instruction set architecture, GPU architecture, network on chip, cache coherency and consistency)
VLSI design (everything from EDA to physical design)

UnrealDruid · Answer

Instead of conditioning yourself to *eventually* work at those companies just apply to those companies. Interviewers understand that new grads have no practical experience and tailor the questions accordingly. Everything starts with the basic knowledge of circuit operation. Focus on the basic questions, what is a transistor, how does it work what is pfet/nfet, what is CMOS and why is it so popular? What is a capacitor, resistor, what is RC delay, time constant, how does it impact charge/discharge times? What is a flip-flop, what is combinational and sequential logic... and so forth..
What extracurriculars have you done in school? Have you shown initiative? Have you built anything yourself outside of classwork? 
I suggest sending our your resume to as many places as possible to practice some interviews before you send them to the companies you actually want to work for. You will get the job you want if you practice real interviews.

cheesyman · Answer

My general tip would be to take a look at a few job descriptions for those companies you mentioned for the roles you're interested in and look at their job responsibilities.

That should give you a good idea about what skills specifically to try and hone in on or start learning about. It may not all make sense at this stage, but the exposure will help no matter what, imo

What skills should I improve in order to eventually work at companies such as Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, etc.?

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